BBC’s hit show Industry was about the cut-throat world of banking (Picture: BBC/Bad Wolf Productions/HBO/Nick Strasburg)
‘It was normal for me to work 100-hour weeks and pull all-nighters.’
For most people, reading that sentence would send shudders down their spines but for Industry co-creator Mickey Down just shrugged it off as ordinary for a junior banker.
‘The first couple of weeks it was hell,’ the showrunner recalled of his former career to Metro.co.uk ahead of season 3 of the hit drama, which has been described as Succession and Euphoria’s love child.
He continued alarmingly: ‘Your body is just not used to it. But then it shows you how powerful a body is and how much it can take – because it gets used to it very, very quickly.’
Mickey lasted one year at a top financial firm on the graduate scheme before deciding to throw in the towel. His long-term friend and Industry co-creator, Konrad Kay, lasted two years more before joining Mickey on their screenwriting quest.
They have channelled their experience of the cutthroat and brutal financial world to critical acclaim in the hit drama Industry, which started following the ambitious graduates at the fictional investment bank Pierpoint.
Creators Konrad (L) and Mickey channelled their real-life experience of the finance world in Industry (Picture: David M. Benett/Hoda Davaine/Dave Benett/Getty Images)
What ensures is sex, drugs and back-stabbing, as the likes of Yasmin (Marisa Abela) and Harper (Myha’la) trample all over each other to realise their own ambitions while partying like it is the 90s. Season 3 follows the original cohort, no longer graduates, as they wrestle with even bigger stakes to get ahead.
So, how realistic is Industry? Certainly the work hard, party harder ethic, according to Mickey.
He recalled: ‘When I was in banking it was a lot of going out, a lot of coming in bleary-eyed, a lot of drinking, and a lot of partying. That probably still exists.’
Mickey remembered one particularly heavy party where he had been up all night and rocked into the office the following day. He fell asleep in the afternoon and woke up to four people staring at him.
The BBC drama is characterised by dysfunctional and toxic relationships (Picture: BBC/Bad Wolf Productions/HBO/Nick Strasburg)
In Industry’s first-ever episode grad Hari Dahr (Nabhaan Rizwan) died in Pierpoint’s toilets after suffering a heart attack triggered by working excruciatingly long hours. While no one died at Mickey or Konrad’s offices, they heard about deaths ‘anecdotally.’
At the heart of Industry is really not the trading, nor the powerplay, but the dysfunctional and often toxic dynamics between its characters. Harper and her former mentor turned nemesis Eric (Ken Leung). Yasmin and her seuxal powerplay with Robert (Harry Lawtey). Take your pick.
For Konrad, in his three years in the banking industry, he encountered ‘some weird managers for sure.’
He said: ‘There was a bit of a hazing element to everything that I did in my first two years. There were certain personality types that treated it – it sounds a bit arcane – but like a frat house.
Mickey said he would work 100 hours works as a junior trader (Picture: BBC/Bad Wolf Productions/HBO/Nick Strasburg)
‘There were certain people and you would be in their peripheral vision but it would take months for them to actually give you eye contact. It was a strange power play.’
It speaks to some of Konrad and Mickey’s former colleagues that far from being furious if they suspect they are the inspiration behind Industry’s most depraved characters, they’re ‘kind of happy.’
Mickey said: ‘People feel really proud that they might have inspired even the really bad characters. I guess it’s a compliment to be the inspiration behind a character on TV – even if they’re horrific, I don’t know.
‘There is a narcissistic quality to a lot of people that work in finance which makes them think that the show is based on them even if we haven’t met before.’
Mickey also said he would regularly work after pulling all-nighters (Picture BBC/Bad Wolf Productions/HBO/Simon Ridgway)
You would think that Industry would act as a deterrent for aspiring bankers. But, no. Mickey said he still regularly gets LinkedIn messages from traders who said the show inspired their finance career.
However, they both imagine the industry has improved since their banking days -particularly in the form of more robust HR departments. But there is one thing that will never change…
‘It still attracts the same people that it attracted 10 years ago, who are money hungry, super A type personalities who live very hard and quite recklessly,’ Mickey said.
And that’s why it makes such an excellent TV show.
Industry season 3 starts on BBC One on Tuesday at 10.40pm and all episodes will be available to stream on iPlayer.
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